


Rope to Hang Himself With

by Diary



Category: Scandal (TV)
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Bechdel Test Fail, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon Queer Character, Disturbing Themes, Getting Together, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, M/M, POV Cyrus Beene, POV Male Character, POV Queer Character, Romance, Season/Series 05, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:12:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6617374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diary/pseuds/Diary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cyrus and Tom come up with a plan to take down Alex Vargas and end up coming together in the process. Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rope to Hang Himself With

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Scandal.

“Hey, I’m borrowing your shower,” Michael calls. “The showerhead is still stopped up on mine.”

Cyrus pokes his head out of the closet and immediately regrets it.

It’s been a long time since he’s seen Michael skin-dampened and wearing nothing but a towel.

Quickly ducking back inside, he answers, “Fine, but I think it’s time we add a new showerhead to the shopping list. You’ve already tried cleaning it how many times?”

“Four,” Michael admits. “Want to join me and save some water? You could tell everyone how committed you are to Vargas’s environmental plan.”

“Funny,” he comments. “You know I take mine at night.”

“Offer’s open,” Michael says.

Hearing the bathroom door open and close, Cyrus closes his eyes and takes a steadying breath.

He and James were never big on shower sex or even just sharing a shower together, but- the offer truly was open with them. He never felt guilty, confused, and disgusted with wanting his husband. When James teased him, he knew it came from a place of truly wanting him rather than it being second nature due to his job.

This is still a job, he reminds himself. As far as the public is concerned, he and Michael are a happy couple raising a little girl together. They hold hands in public, go shopping with Ella on the weekends, and often have breakfast and dinner together. After James- he’d hired a cook, but Michael is good at cooking and genuinely doesn’t mind doing it, and eventually, they’d given her a glowing recommendation and a nice severance cheque. Whenever Michael doesn’t have classes, he usually spends time with Ella, but they have Susie, the nanny, for when neither is available.

Every year, another million goes into Michael’s account.

As usual, he finds himself thinking, What were you thinking?

It might not have been right to marry Janet, but he still loves her. Part of the reason he never fully slept with any men before James was because risking so much and putting someone else at risk when he didn’t love them and they didn’t love him was unconscionable.

Seeing how sleeping with someone you did love and stupidly loved you back turned out, you really should have stuck with that, at least, invades his head.

Hearing the shower start, he finishes getting dressed.

…

As a kid, he genuinely believed God hated him.

Now, an agnostic, he’s relatively sure the universe or something has decided now is when the punishment for all his misdeeds should start.

Tom shows up at the suite sweaty from a run, gives him a small smile, and starts changing while discussing the campaign, because, why wouldn’t he? Sure, Cyrus is gay, but Cyrus is also married and has never been the type to act inappropriately towards young men or any men, really. Whenever he was confronted with someone uncomfortable being around him due to his sexuality in the past, he took the approach of talking non-stop about James, partly to reassure any straight men he wasn’t interested in any man but one and partly to make it clear to everyone he wasn’t ashamed or willing to hide his love.

Now, there’s no need. Everyone seems to have gotten the message Cyrus can’t even have causal sex with a hooker without falling in love and honours his marriage bed.

Tom knows the marriage is a sham, but again, why would he stop to think it might be difficult for a lonely, middle-aged man who misses his dead husband and has to deal with his in-name only husband running around in nothing but a towel to be in the same room with such a handsome, well-developed young man?

Briefly, he remembers playing with little Jerry Grant, but he has so much blood on his own hands, he can’t muster up the horror and anger he knows he should feel over his friend’s innocent, fifteen-year-old child being killed.

Just because he’d do almost anything to avoid karmic justice, it doesn’t mean he won’t privately admit he deserves it.

“And Alex Vargas has been looking into me.”

Looking over, he exclaims, “What?”

Immediately, he looks back down at his notebook. “I told you- What are we at risk of him finding out?”

In the corner of his eye, he sees Tom wrap a towel around himself. “I resigned from the Secret Service for personal reasons. There isn’t any record of my crime or my time in supermax.”

“That you know of,” he mutters. “Even if there isn’t, we need to figure out how, when, and why he became interested in you and make sure he doesn’t discover anything that could lead to my exposure. If you’re planning on taking a shower, go. They can wait, but we have several things to discuss.”

Tom heads towards the bathroom.

…

“It looks like he’s been trying to find out if you’ve ever cheated on Michael Ambruso,” Tom tells him.

“Well, he won’t find anything there, but try to find out if he’s looking in on Michael.”

Tom visibly hesitates. “Would he find-”

“I don’t know, and aside from not wanting Ella to hear about anything on the news, I don’t care. We’ve sold the public on being a loving, stable couple, and that’s what I want to keep. Otherwise, Michael can do whatever he wants with whomever he wants.”

“But if he does find something?”

“Keep him from doing so,” is Cyrus’s impatient response. “If you absolutely can’t, one, I will question your usefulness, and two, I’ll try to figure out something to minimise the damage. Mainly, in this matter, I’m genuinely concerned about Ella. Open marriage, a moment of weakness, even yes, I’m a gay stereotype but one who is, nevertheless, incredibly good at his job, all that I can live with. I’d just prefer everything remain stable and happy for her.”

“However Governor Vargas personally feels, wouldn’t he object to his brother exposing your, his campaign manager’s, dirty laundry to the world?”

“Only if Alex decides not to anonymously do it or is simply bad at covering his tracks,” he answers. “If he makes it look like someone else dug up the dirt and exposed me, Frankie Vargas might be sympathetic, but he’ll consider it as fair’s fair.” 

“Are you worried about Ambruso getting hurt?”

“Even if all this came out, he wouldn’t be. I’ve paid him a fortune, and if he wants to leave, he has plenty of options. If might look better if he stayed, but it’d be better for all three of us to let him make a clean break.”

“You, him, and Ella?”

“Mm-hm,” Cyrus agrees. “Who else?”

Tapping his fingers against the table, Tom says, “He might look into your marriage with James Novak.”

The pictures of James and Daniel Douglas flash through his mind. “Don’t worry about that. There was a time when James and I went through a rough patch. That’s actually why I put this suite on permanent hold. But every couple goes through rough patches. I was faithful to him, and we loved one another.”

Seeing the look on Tom’s face, he has a sinking feeling Tom latched onto his word choice.

“Don’t,” he repeats. “Your Command at the time made my husband into a heroic victim. As much as I supposedly love Michael, some part of me is always going to be the grieving widower trying to do right by the daughter James and I brought into our home, because, for all the monster I truly am, I am also that. It’s not a story, it’s the simple truth. And if anyone tries to rewrite that truth into some twisted story, I will make them look like the monster.”

Softly, Tom says, “I didn’t have anything to do with it. I didn’t even know until I heard about you attacking Ballard.”

“It’d be nice to say, ‘I wouldn’t be working with you if I thought you did,’ but the fact I have worked with Jake Ballard, even knowing what he did, takes away my right to say it. Let’s change the subject.”

“You’re not the only one he’s been looking into. I know you knew that, but for some reason, he’s looking into Foxcraft.”

Alarmed, Cyrus looks up. “He’s looking into Karen Grant?”

“Yes. I don’t know why.”

Groaning, Cyrus rubs his head. “The option of having him killed and trying to convince Frankie to run despite his grief continues to look more and more attractive.”

“Even with what I did to Jerry, you know that your best chance at protecting her and her father is to tell me what you’re so worried about him finding,” Tom quietly tells him.

Conceding the point, Cyrus takes a breath and starts.

…

During lunch, Tom says, “If we let Alex Vargas find something and have his brother find out what he’s up to, that might work.”

“You lost me somewhere.”

“What if you did have a boyfriend?”

“Do what? I- I’m even more lost than I was a minute ago.”

Tom stares at him, and he has to look away.

“There’s a story you could spin. When you lost James Novak, you were a grief-stricken widower father with a toddler. Through that, you made some questionable choices by getting involved with a prostitute. When the pictures came out, you married him, maybe because you had developed genuine feelings for him, maybe because you wanted to keep your job and protect your daughter.”

“Then, somewhere down the line, you developed a relationship with a member of the Secret Service. Eventually, I resigned my position. Now, you and I currently check in under fake names at the Grand District Hotel. Maybe I live here, maybe I don’t. It shouldn’t be hard to create a history of fake check-in names.”

“Obviously, some details would need to be worked out, but if Alex Vargas discovered all of this and tried to cause trouble in your marriage or was caught trying to leak it to the press, Governor Vargas would be compelled to take your side.”

Usually, Cyrus would be staring, but he can’t risk going up against Tom’s pale, scrutinising eyes at the moment.

“This is something I’d normally never ask, what with it not being my business, but in a way, you just made it my business: What are you? Sexual orientation wise?”

 He looks over for the answer.

Tom shrugs. “I’ve had sex with two women. I did some things with a man. Sexual things, but I’m not sure whether it would count as actually having sex or not. I’ve been on a few dates with women. I’ve never had a relationship with anyone. I think, if I liked someone, I’d enjoy sex with them, but those two women and that man- hopefully, they all enjoyed it, at least.”

Cyrus feels a surge of empathetic sympathy.

“The idea of handing him a length of rope and letting him hang himself is good, but we’ll come up with a different way to do it.”

“This is the easiest and, out of everything he could find out about you, one of the safest ways,” Tom argues.  “Not to mention sympathetic. However Governor Vargas feels about adultery or open marriages, he’s a reasonable man who knows that such things happen and that, sometimes, the people in those situations are genuinely good people.”

“How could you possibly be okay with doing this? With risking it getting out? Whatever you are, right now, you have the option of presenting yourself as straight. Once that’s gone- As much as I loathe to be one who says, ‘My generation vs yours, compare and contrast…’, but in this case, I’m going to. People look at how much more accepting the world can be today, and it truly can be, I’m proof of that, but the truth is that it’s still very much a straight, able-bodied, neurotypical, white man’s world. Once that’s gone, it’s gone for good, and there are a myriad of things you might find yourself missing.”

Smiling slightly, Tom says, “And so your advice would be to forever present myself as straight, regardless of whether I find someone who may not be female someday?”

Scowling, Cyrus answers, “No, of course not. Gays and lesbians and other sexual minorities, when these people meet someone, when they fall in love, they have to decide for themselves if they want the world to know. They have to decide if living openly is worth giving up certain privileges and benefits. If it’s worth the potential consequences.”

“I can’t say what choice any of these people should make. I do have a true respect and admiration for most of those who decide to come forward. But I would advise all those very young people out there not to rush into screaming out they are this or that just because they identify strongly with some TV character or because they’ve been fooling around with some pretty little girl or cute boy at sleepovers their oblivious parents let them have or someone they met in their college art class.”

“I agree with you on that,” Tom says. “To answer your questions: I’m not that young. I’m not some teenager or college kid. And as for things getting out, I killed President Fitzgerald’s fifteen-year-old, teenage son. You helped rig a national election. Those are the worst things that could get out. Neither of us are going to anything in the way of options if they do. Compared to them, you sleeping with someone besides your husband and me not being straight-” Tom shrugs.

Cyrus studies Tom for a long moment and sees Tom is certain he’d be okay with being part of such a story.

“Most importantly right now, we need to establish a clear timeline. You were already resigned by the time the photos leaked.”

Nodding, Tom gives him a full smile.

…

What, he finds himself thinking, about this strikes you as not being a terrible idea? This is a terrible idea. Abort mission, now.

A week after deciding on the plan, they’re standing outside the Grand District Hotel, and Tom tells him, “He’s watching. Now’s the time to kiss me.”

Abort mission, the part of him still composed of sanity, morality, or just some part of him not completely twisted and evil empathetically insists.

When the kiss breaks, the same part is resigned: Too late. You had to put yourself in this position, didn’t you?

“He got the pictures,” Tom tells him.

“Good,” he says.

They’re heading up to the suite, and he’s only barely listening.

Once they’re inside, it hits him: He’s going to have to stay here with Tom for an hour or two, at least.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“It’d be better to wait until just before you’re ready to go home.”

“Right,” he says. “Good point.”

He goes to pick up a book and feels himself crashing back to reality when Tom’s warm hand wraps around his.

“I felt it, too.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

Tom makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “You only resort to lying when you’re feeling trapped.”

He lets go of the hand but continues, “There are no cameras here, Cyrus. The price for getting what I want and need is getting you the election, not sex. I’m not claiming to be in love with you or wanting a declaration of feelings from you. Since I’m not feeling trapped, however, I am telling you that I think I’d enjoy having sex with you and that you’d enjoy it, too.”

“If you say no, I won’t push. You can read your book while I watch TV and we both ignore what we’d really rather be doing until you get to the privacy of your own bedroom and I have the privacy of here back. Or we can do what Alex Vargas thinks we are and have some fun with this plan.”

“Yes,” he lets himself admit, “I’d enjoy it. When it comes to you, however-”

“You’ve had sex you didn’t enjoy, either,” Tom interrupts. “We both know how it feels. I’ve done terrible things, but I’m not a sadistic person. Call me a bad one, fine, but I’m not cruel for cruelty’s sake. Just like you, it would hurt me if I ever found out someone I had sex with hadn’t wanted it. I don’t particularly like the thought they hadn’t enjoyed themselves, but giving a bad performance would be easier to deal with than having that knowledge. I wouldn’t put you in that position. If something didn’t work for me, I’d tell you, and we’d find something that worked for both of us. I know you’d do the same.”

Cyrus studies him.

Don’t, a resigned part of him warns.

Reaching over, he carefully kisses Tom, and Tom immediately responds.

…

His phone ringing jolts Cyrus awake.

Tom grumbles when Cyrus detangles himself enough to sit up.

“Hello?”

“You sound like you were asleep,” Michael says.

“I was,” he agrees.

Beside him, Tom has managed to wrap an arm around his stomach and is pressing his head against his (Cyrus’s) side.

“You’re at the Grand District Hotel?”

“Yeah. Is everything alright? Ella?”

“She’s fine,” Michael says. “Working late, huh?”

“You could say that,” Cyrus agrees. “It was easier to just crash out here, but if you need me to come home-”

“Yeah,” Michael says. “There’s something we need to talk about. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Okay,” Cyrus says. “But you and Ella are okay?”

Michael sighs. “We’re fine.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

“Be safe.”

“I will.”

He hangs up, picks up his ring, slips it back on, and briefly considers taking a quick shower. He’d taken one earlier, but afterwards, Tom had been up for another round.

“You need to get home,” Tom’s sleep-heavy voice inquires.

“Yes,” he answers. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but it could be that Alex has been over with the pictures.”

Sitting up, Tom lets out another protesting noise and softly kisses him. “Come by tomorrow?”

“I will.”

Standing up, he gently pushes Tom back onto the bed and covers him up.

Tom grabs Cyrus’s pillow and wraps around it.


End file.
